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Chains of the Past. Shackles of the Present: How the Ghost of Slavery Continues to Haunt America

7/17/2016

2 Comments

 
Jay Arrington July 12, 2016 9:42 PM

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Oath Keepers march in Ferguson, Mo 2014
 
https://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/video-oath-keepers-to-hold-march-through-ferguson-with-50-armed-black-protesters/
​

Can you imagine what present day America would be like if slavery never occurred in America, and the slaughter of the Indian notwithstanding? Set aside the fact that much of America would never have been built and many of the wealthy whites in this country would probably be piss poor - and think about the impact of slavery on the mentality of those involved. On the one hand you have those who devised the plan, implemented and carried out the plan and were willing to die - and in many cases did in a vain attempt to maintain a lifestyle of privilege and prosperity. On the other hand you have the victims.

Now before we get too high on the horse and begin to believe that because those folks lost that war they stopped fighting… remember one thing, they never have. Those folks continued to fight and although the strategy changed and the battlefield was expanded, the enemy and the spoils of war remained the same. Who’s the enemy? Anyone not wearing the confederate uniform. Who are the spoils of war? Blacks. White folks went right back to war; and their children, their children’s children and their children’s children, children continue to be loaded for bear because they never accepted defeat and they never got over losing the institution of slavery.  And because white folks haven’t gotten over slavery neither have black folks.

Relatively speaking, with few exceptions, THE BELIEF THAT BLACKS ARE ANGRY ABOUT SLAVERY OF THE PAST IS A COMPLETE AND UTTER MYTH. No folks, blacks are not angry about slavery of the past. Blacks are angry about slavery of the present. As I said earlier, whites are the ones angry about slavery of the past. In spite of all the times you heard some white person say that blacks need to, “forget about slavery,” it’s not us, it’s them. The only reason blacks are angry is because blacks continue to be the targets of the very same practices of slavery past
  • Family annihilation
  • Voter suppression
  • Inferior education
  • Incarceration
  • Stereotyping
  • Profiling
  • Job discrimination
  • Murder
Whites want blacks to forget so that blacks won’t recognize that it is still going on, you know, “watch the birdie.”
Shall I go on? And surprisingly the anger doesn’t come so much from the fact that blacks continue to be the object of these atrocities. The anger comes from the fact that whites continue to be in denial about their complicity and evil intent. Nothing pisses someone off more than to have someone spit in their eye and then deny that they did. Even worse than spitting is the fact that whites pretend as though blacks can’t get over slavery, when as I said, it’s them.
 
Need more evidence?
Put aside all of what I mentioned earlier and consider the argument from this perspective. What, up until Trump’s “Make America great again” crap, had been the chief desire you heard from white voters each presidential election cycle since President Obama took office? Yup, you guessed it, “Take our country back.” Now, what I wonder is do they believe they lost when Obama became president. Could it be a sense of control? And what better way to reestablish control over what you believe you “OWN” then through the use of violence…reestablish and confirm your dominance as lord and master -read Massa.
 
Convinced yet? Shall I go on?
What is prison except for a modern day plantation? And much like slaves that were emancipated and had nowhere to go and chose to stay, most freed prisoners end up returning to prison simply because they have nowhere to go. Even worse, just like slaves they have no training, cannot get a job, cannot vote, which means they can’t feed themselves or their families so they return to what they know, crime/prison/Massa.
 
And finally folks, let’s talk about “OPEN CARRY.”  Think way back to before Obama came into office. How much talk was there about “OPEN CARRY?” Apart from the fear of losing a country what the election of Obama did to whites in America was threefold, 1) it scared whites into thinking that blacks believed they (blacks) had carte’ blanc to kill whites (never our nature), not for slavery past but that we had finally seen the light about the present 2) reminded whites of their past as if they needed reminding and 3) made whites grab their guns as evidence that the war never ended.
 
Listen up folks, this ain’t “GHOSTBUSTERS,” and while you might be afraid of that ghost, black folks ain’t afraid’ of no ghost. 


Jay Arrington is a staff writer for the Maryland Daily Examiner.  
Contact Jay Arrington by EMAIL. 

For information regarding the Maryland Daily Examiner, contact Reginald Kearney, Editor in Chief, by sending your email to: 
reginald.kearney@marylanddailyexaminer.com

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Forty Acres and a Mule: Why it really matters

10/25/2015

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I remember with amazing clarity watching the debate between Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio when the two were running for the senate seat vacated by retiring New York Senator Patrick Daniel Moynihan in 2000. During that debate, both candidates disagreed on every subject with one exception. When questioned by a Black reporter, near the end, about their respective positions concerning reparations for Blacks, both said, “Get over it.”

Forty Acres and A Mule (FAAM) by today’s standards would certainly fetch a hefty price depending on location.  But in 1865, it was not about money, but about self-worth and opportunity. Take a trip with me and explore for a moment what ownership of forty acres and mule would have done for our ancestors and the impact it might have had on our lives today. FAAM would have allowed a man to feed his family by the sweat of his brow; would have made it possible for his wife and children to enjoy their own chitlins’ and their own pigs-feet, and not the trickle-down scraps from the master’s table; and would have rendered moot this cycle of dependency.

The docudrama “Banished”, a film by director Marco Williams airing on Starz Black Television this month in honor of Black History Month, explores African-American families expelled from their communities by the White majority residents. The story highlights the plight of many African-American families who were forced to abandon their homes and their lands under threat of death simply because of the color of their skin. The relationship here is that many or all of these lands were then taken over by whites under what is called “adverse possession.” Meaning that someone can claim property you forcibly abandoned, use it to their benefit and then have the legal system, they created, support their thievery. Sound familiar? Sounds eerily like slavery. Unfortunately, as was always the case, all of these cleansings were done under the guise that a black man had raped a white woman. 
False charges and historical patterns notwithstanding, it is the significance of the outcome where stories such as these, crystallize. Not only did the United States government renege on its [unofficial] policy of providing arable land to black former slaves, but for those blacks who were able to purchase and acquire land legally, their lands were stolen and subsequently passed down through white generations instead of black generations. FAAM would have given a black man’s children something to look forward too, and would probably have changed the lives of many blacks today regarding where they start and where they end up.

Melvin Oliver, a prominent sociologist says, “Wealth is not just about contemporary issues. It's also about the legacy of the past….African Americans have a history where there has been little wealth in the past, therefore making it more likely that there's little wealth in the future.” Unfortunately, we cannot live on “probably would haves”.  But somebody please, “Tell me again why we should forget?” 

Written by Jay Arrington, Staff Writer for the Maryland Daily Examiner

For information regarding Maryland Daily Examiner, contact Reggie Kearney, Editor-in-Chief.  
Click HERE for email. 

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Cop Cancer: The Malignant Tumor of the African-American Community

8/2/2015

1 Comment

 

And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.                                                                                                                                                  Matthew 13:42

According to the CDC, cancer ranks as the second highest cause of death among African-Americans, natural deaths that is. But what about unnatural causes like death by what I like to call ‘Cop Cancer’ that old hide-in-plain-sight epidemic that has plagued African-Americans since reconstruction. For the record, where does that rank among cause of death for African-Americans? What are the symptoms? What are some of the preventive measures to avoid becoming a victim and what treatment is available?

Well, the first question is a bit difficult to answer because within the archives of denial there are no records to research. And besides, do we really expect the fox to admit to the number of chickens he killed? Do we really? The second question regarding symptoms, while still difficult is somewhat less difficult depending on the when and the where. For example:

1)      being harassed for no other reason that being African-American

2)      beaten on the side of the highway by a state trooper  

3)      being called out of your name

4)    taunted about your IQ

5)    slammed on the hood of a car or on concrete

6)    shot while standing on your front porch

7)    shot when officers raid the wrong home

8)    fired upon over 100 times as officers stand on the hood of your car

9)    shot and killed as you flee

10)  shot in the back as you lay on the ground

11)  killed in Walmart while a holding toy gun that the store sells

12)  being choked to death for selling loose cigarettes

13)  dying after having your spinal cord severed in the back of a police van

14)  dying in a jail cell after being arrested for failing to signal a lane change

15)  being shot in the head after being pulled over for lacking a front license plate

Shall I continue?

 
These types of things are nothing new or surprising to African-Americans, or to the majority of whites. Yeah, you all can feign shock and outrage all you want, but you’ve known all along. And you know how we know you’ve known? We know because the cancer has been left untreated and like a malignant tumor has spread leaving scores of African-American bodies in its wake.  You’ve cultivated and nurtured this cancer in your homes, in your schools, in policy and in the media. The difference now is that technology has created citizen journalists who for reasons of viral fame or whatever, record, posts and blast this cancer on social media for all the world to see.  Even so, video provides no guarantee that justice will prevail –for example the cases of Eric Garner and Rodney King.   

As for questions three and four, “What are some of the preventive measures to avoid becoming a victim and what treatment is available?”  Unless we can figure out a way to stop being African-American, I don’t see a viable solution other than prayer… AND PRAY, WE MUST!

If this were paper upon which I write, my tears would wet the page and so alas I stain my keyboard. I cry… no I weep - not so much because I hurt, but more so, because I despair of the fact that we digress and remove ourselves ever so farther away from the love and the unity we claim we seek.

I weep for the first African drawn and quartered in America - made an example to break the resistance of other slaves.

I weep for the countless lives lost in the name of misplaced delusions of grandeur.

I weep for Emmet Till.

I weep for the four little girls of Birmingham.

I weep for those hanged as strange fruit.

I weep for those that weep in solitude abandoned and alone in their jail cells.

I weep for the IRP6 and the Newburgh Four. I weep for the orphaned families.

I weep for those who have yet to know weeping. But mostly I weep for those whose weeping will be accompanied by the gnashing of teeth.

 

Written by Jay Arrington, Staff Writer for the Maryland Daily Examiner

For more articles and information regarding the Maryland Daily Examiner, contact Reggie Kearney, Editor-in-Chief (Email).  Or visit their website at: www.marylanddailyexaminer.com

 

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/populations/REMP/black.html#10

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What’s in a Name? How Your Birth Name Precedes Your Reputation

6/28/2015

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Originally published on The Black American News Network website Aug. 2012 Updated June 27, 2015

 ‘…impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal’ President Barack Obama June 26, 2015 during eulogy of Reverend Clementa Pinckney

 For African-Americans, name means everything. Your name is the one thing post emancipation that cannot be taken away, not easily anyway. Together with a social-security number, your name identifies you as unique. It sets you apart. It is reasonable then to assume that until you have done something to taint your name or that attaches to your social-security number, no one would have any reason to deny you opportunities before meeting you, right. But hold on folks, there’s a new sheriff in town and he’s policing by a new set of rules. 



While minorities of all kinds have wrestled with whether to celebrate their culture by giving their children distinctive names, or help them "blend in" with a name that won't stick out, blacks have chosen increasingly distinctive names over the past century, with the trend accelerating during the 1960s. 

Research in the U.S. shows that as a result, employers now use these names to identify ethnicity. Names like DeShawn and Shanice are almost exclusively black, while whites, whose names have also become increasingly distinctive, favored names like Cody and Caitlin. Roland Fryer of the Cambridge-based National Bureau of Economic Research says, “It's not really that you're named Kayesha that matters, it's that you live in a community where you're likely to get that name that matters." 

However, in another paper entitled “Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal … The University of Chicago's Marianne Bertrand and MIT's Sendhil Mullainathan appeared to find that a black-sounding name could be an impediment. For many blacks this presents a peculiar problem. On the one hand, they do not want their children robbed of their ethnicity, on the other they believe a distinctively black name could end up being an economic impediment.

'Black' Names A Resume Burden? - CBS News




Written by Jay Arrington, The Maryland Daily Examiner

For additional articles written by Jay Arrington, visit the Maryland Daily Examiner website.  For information regarding the Maryland Daily Examiner, contact Reggie Kearney (Editor-in-Chief). 


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"CONVERSATIONS"

6/21/2015

1 Comment

 
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“Imagine if in this world we were all colorblind. If not one of us had any way of distinguishing of race. Oh my what a wonderful world this would be if somehow in our place and time we could live side by side in this world colorblind.” 
                               From the song “Colorblind” by Jay Arrington © Copyright 2011Poetry Emotion Productions, LLC

Raise your hand if you believe that what you contribute to society relative to your values is not a reflection of what you learned at home and be honest. Come on now. Let’s see a show of hands. Granted some of you did not grow up in a two-parent home or with your biological parents. Still, the odds favor that your values descend from your home and what you heard adults say about others, and their (adults) treatment of others. Mind you, these off-the-cuff descriptions and gestures might stem from road-rage incidents or an adult responding to a news story, a politician or a crime. However, the most likely venue for the majority of influence on your values were the conversations had around the dinner table.

Imagine a child sitting around the dinner table hearing his father referring to a co-worker as a “Jew Bastard” or her mother referring to a neighbor as a “Black Nigger Bitch.” You know what I mean don’t you? Fess’ up, we’ve all heard it before. Hell, as a black man I heard my father say “Jew Bastard” many times as I am sure many of you have heard someone say, “Nigger,” “Spic,” “Kike,” or “Wetback.” Chances are the majority of you first heard these words at home around the dinner table. A few years back I wrote a series titled “The Ape Story” about the pattern of learned behavior in the urban community, not that urban communities have a monopoly on setting bad examples but to offer a solution by identifying the problem.

Well folks, guess what? It ain’t only in urban communities. It’s in suburbia also and again if we are honest about it we must acknowledge that bad behavioral patterns have been alive and well in mainstream America (white households) for hundreds of years. In fact, most of the bad behaviors present in urban communities are a by-product of blacks’ assimilation of white societal behavior/s…enough of that however.

This past Wednesday night in Charleston, SC a twenty-one year old white male walked into 200-year-old Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and with malice & forethought shot dead nine black bible study participants. Forget for a moment the act as heinous and hateful as it was and concentrate on this, twenty-one years of age. Where and how does a twenty-one year old amass this much hatred for a race of people especially when his age alone testifies to the fact that his life experience with blacks could never justify such hate? There can only be one plausible explanation and that is perhaps this was a homeschooled curriculum.

Think about this folks. When you see archival footage of lynchings, dogs attacking blacks in the south, protestors blocking school doors and whites spitting and tossing rocks do you ever wonder where those people are now? Really, the majority of these people were white women that brought along their children to enjoy the spectacle of a black man being lynched. Some were white teenagers that enjoyed terrorizing lunch counter protestors, Freedom Riders or beating to death someone associated with the Civil Rights movement sans “Selma.” Where are those people now or better still where are their grandchildren and what were the lessons taught during the conversations around the dinner table?

Well, some are in Congress passing laws that reflect their values, e.g. voter suppression, denial of assistance, deciding what foods families are allowed to purchase (Kansas). Some are in the criminal justice system implementing those laws in ways that reflect their values, e.g. shooting folks down like the animals they view them as or handing down exaggerated sentences. Some are in the school system denying education to those they consider a threat to their perceived superiority, a direct reflection of their values. Some are sitting behind a desk denying work opportunities in an attempt to oppress the already oppressed, another reflection of values. Some are watching their grandchildren walk into a church and gun down nine people worshiping the very God upon whose word America claims to have built its foundational principles/values. Yeah, right.

Listen up folks and you will hear if you haven’t already people referring once again to the country’s need to have a serious conversation about race. This may come as a surprise to you folks but there is a serious conversation being had about race and therein lies the problem. Want to hear it? Get invited to dinner.

RIP brothers and sisters and pray the Father grant us some time to return to Him.

 
Written By Jay Arrington, Maryland Daily Examiner
For information regarding Maryland Daily Examiner, contact Reggie Kearney, Editor-in-Chief at reginald.kearney@marylanddailyexaminer.com


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Rachel Dolezal: The Real Imitation of Life

6/18/2015

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“I am—yet what I am, none cares or knows; 
My friends forsake me like a memory lost: 
I am the self-consumer of my woes; 
They rise and vanish in oblivion's host, 
Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes:
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tost.”From the John Clare poem “I Am”


So now everyone wants a piece of Rachel Dolezal’s hide - Some want to tan (pardon the pun) the white part and others want to tar and feather the other. Personally, I could care less. It is even being reported that Dolezal admits that her hair is a weave, duh! Really, what self-respecting black woman doesn’t have a weave of some type in her hair? I am at a lost as to why this is a story anyway. Don’t get me wrong I do understand the shock and the outrage to a degree but what I don’t understand is the surprise everyone seems to be experiencing.

Consider this if you will. White folks have been imitating blacks for years - our music, our style of dress, our dance, our art, our walk, and our talk. Hell, the first time a white person laid out in the sun in an attempt to secure a tan we should have known something was up. Now-a-days, the only things that blacks can say we took from whites culturally speaking is disrespect for parents, promiscuity, lack of morals and tattoos (stolen from the Aryan Brotherhood in prison) and we screwed all of these things up by going overboard. And here is where things get people’s panties and boxers all in a bunch.

You see folks, America is accustomed to whites imitating blacks for entertainment purposes, (can anyone say blackface, Eminem, or Vanilla Ice) because there is no inherent danger of overkill. Blacks on the other hand consistently go overboard when imitating whites. Unfortunately, we blacks have yet to figure out the dangers such as societal regression reaped upon us (blacks) by blazing that obstacle laden trail. Enter Rachel, Dolezal, and suddenly that tabooed glass ceiling has been shattered. Rachel dared to go where no white man or woman that we know of had gone before. Instead of imitating or instead of pretending to be blackish Rachel decided to be black and some of us are insulted.

Remember the weave I mentioned earlier, why do you think weaves exist? Because white folks have brainwashed black women (some) into thinking that unless they have long flowing hair like white women they (black women) are unacceptable and unattractive. Why the hell would anyone be mad about a white woman wearing a weave and subjecting herself to the aforementioned mental psychosis? Hell, if anything, take it as a compliment.

And besides if society accepts whatever Bruce Jenner’s name is claim that although he was born a man he is really a woman trapped in a man’s body, why not accept Rachel as being a black woman trapped in a white woman’s body however ridiculous the argument is or the speculation might be. Oh, but then again we are discussing race and race is not afforded the same “oh you poor thing you deserve to be happy” BS as whatever it takes or whatever someone does to achieve orgasm, can we talk.

In the movie “Watermelon Man,” Jeff Gerger, a middle-class white bigot awakens one day to find he is no longer white but black. Needless to say Gerger’s world is turned upside down. For one thing, Gerger, played by Godfrey Cambridge, is accused of robbery for running after a bus that as a white man he chased for years for exercise. Yet, chasing the bus as a black man, the police assume he is fleeing a crime scene, classic situation relevant even to this day.

In the film “Imitation of Life,” a young fair-skinned black girl named Sarah Jane played by Susan Kohner decides to pass as white to escape the oppressive policies of the era only to discover that passing is not a pass. When her white boyfriend discovers her deception, he beats Sarah Jane mercilessly. My point is that relatively speaking there is no fairytale happy ending for being black, pretending to be white and now we see also for pretending to be black, so what’s the big deal?    

Take a read of that excerpt from the poem at the beginning of the article and marinate on its meaning. What does it say about how you feel about who you are, where you are, versus what you want to be and where you want to be.

There is one thing if nothing else - this entire affair begs me to contemplate how much this girl’s parents hate her to have outed her, and why. 

 
Written by Jay Arrington, The Maryland Daily Examiner

For additional articles written by Jay Arrington, visit the Maryland Daily Examiner website.  For information regarding the Maryland Daily Examiner, contact Reggie Kearney (Editor-in-Chief). 


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Baltimore: What It Really Tells Us

4/28/2015

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“It’s not about the stem. It’s about the root and the fruit.”  
                                                   ~~~Poetry Emotion By Jay

Last week on Real World News Radio, I along with my partners Reggie Kearney (Editor-In-Chief & Publisher of Maryland Daily Examiner) and Chara Ann Tappin discussed, “The Deadly Force: When Murder Becomes an Epidemic” with special guest Cheryl Ford Dorsey. Ms Dorsey, who served for twenty-years with the LAPD and retired as a Sergeant, appeared as a guest to offer insight into the mentality of police officers and suggest ways in which blacks and the nation, as a whole might combat this epidemic of murders of unarmed black men by police officers. 
A few days prior to the show, shortly after his arrest by Baltimore City Police, Freddie Gray, according to unconfirmed reports suffered a crushed larynx and a severed spinal cord. Unconfirmed injuries, notwithstanding however, the bottom line is this, Freddie Gray died from injuries sustained approximately 45 minutes after his arrest. Subsequent events that testify to the frustrations of a city long mired in the shackles of chain-free captivity provide, ‘I told you so’ fodder for some and ‘It’s about time’ idiocy for others. Either way, enough is enough.

Toni Breedlove, CEO of Hot Topics Talk Radio Network and producer of Real World News Radio commented on the show that she holds her breath, afraid that each time her son leaves his home he might encounter some gung-ho trigger-happy police officer. Unfortunately, there are scores of mothers and fathers too, that are holding their collective breaths for the very same reason. However, the truth is, even the fathers have reason to worry for their own safety because in present day America, no black man is safe…not one.

Anyway, let’s take a few minutes and discuss the title of this article, “Baltimore: What it Really Tells Us.” Here are some interesting facts about Baltimore as reported in the April 28th edition of the Baltimore Sun (Mark Puente & Doug Donovan). Puente and Donovan wrote, “The city of Baltimore has paid roughly $6.3 million since 2011 to settle police-misconduct claims, according to a Baltimore Sun review of city and court records.”  The Sun’s investigation also revealed that, “the city spent $5.7 million in 102 court judgments and settlements for alleged police misconduct since 2011; since then, there has been an additional $587,250 in payouts.”

Additionally, “the investigation showed that city residents — including a pregnant woman and an 87-year-old grandmother — received battered faces, broken bones and other injuries during questionable arrests.”

I mention these statistics because despite the rioting and the looting, which as usual appear to warrant more coverage than what triggered (pardon the pun) these events, statistics such as these do not represent outlier dynamics. No, to the contrary… What Baltimore tells us is this - “You can get away with something only for so long but sooner or later it catches up with you.” The aforementioned stats clearly say that Baltimore police have engaged in decades of abuse of authority, power and process, not unlike many Law Enforcement Agencies throughout the United States, the judicial system (courts) included.

Here’s another stat for you - “Through a Maryland Public Information Act request, The Sun requested details on lawsuits filed in 2013 and 2014. The city provided records for 156 cases.” That’s right folks, your eyes do not deceive you.  The city provided 156 cases, which indicates there exists many, many more that the city did not provide. When we consider the breadth of irresponsible and reprehensible conduct of Baltimore City Police, we now are forced to reconsider the argument that what we are witnessing is the result of a ‘few bad apples’ and that the ‘majority of police officers are decent.’

BS is what I say to both of these imaginary and unconscionable defenses.  I must admit that I too mouthed those words unaware that I, as others, was parroting the very lines engrained into our psyche by Law Enforcement. They (Law Enforcement) want us to espouse this ‘stinkin’ thinkin’. They want us to believe this crap because we then act as defenders of the very policy we say we abhor.

Check this out, if you owned an apple orchard and this one particular tree consistently produced bad apples, what would you do? Perhaps you would think that you were doing something wrong, and tolerate the few bad apples. However, what if the problem never corrected itself but instead begin to manifest throughout the orchard? Would you not then begin to consider the root? The more prudent course of action would be to consider that you do not see - the root or in the case of Law Enforcement, the system itself.

Furthermore, where it concerns this notion that the majority of police officers are decent that’s another pile of rubbish. Yeah, I said it. Sure, there are many decent police officers, but they are not in the majority. Allow me to explain. Well, it’s quite simple really, because where I come from majority rules. You see, a majority of decent police officers would not tolerate a few bad apples that misrepresent the tree/system. A majority of decent police officers would not attempt to cover up the misguided, racist, and hate-filled ideologies of rogue police officers. No, that is not what a majority of decent police officers would do, the thin blue line be damned. This is what Baltimore tells us. You now have my permission to exhale.

Referenced: Brutality lawsuits continue in Baltimore, site of Freddie ...


Written by Jay Arrington
Featured Writer for the Maryland Daily Examiner 
For additional articles, go to: Maryland Daily Examiner


For information regarding online, and print news, contact Reggie Kearney, Editor-in-Chief
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The Self Segregation of Black America

1/28/2015

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“In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” 
          
                             ~~~ Alabama Governor George Wallace                                                        Inaugural Speech 1963
Though Wallace would later apologize for the above referenced words conventional wisdom would suggest that Black America might just accomplish Wallace’s utopia wish. The majority of Black American social thought of present day, America represents an eclectic blend of various solutions regarding the institutions of American racism.  Unfortunately, none it would appear have worked. While the viewpoints of Black America play out buffet style, attitude towards Blacks remains steadfast despite the morphing face of America.

Looking through the store window from rational street affords one the luxury of a quasi buyer’s remorse sense of righteous indignation. Blacks bought integration in the 60s, tried it on in the 70s, realized it (integration) didn’t fit in the 80s, sent [it] to the tailor in the 90s and now in the 2000s, are making every effort to return it, minus the wrappings and the receipt. What is worse is that there exists no store to which to return it. Thus, in lieu of the in-ability to return integration, blacks have decided, as the courts would say to, ‘constructively evict’ themselves from society.

However, in the midst of this constructive eviction/self-segregation, questions arise concerning cause, effect, and intent. Intentions notwithstanding, the term self-segregation evokes for some, images of a reversal of blood-bought progress, while for others a welcomed come-to-Jesus moment. For example, the remaining remnants of Black Nationalists whose originators according to Northwestern University Professor Sterling Stuckey, PhD, "emphasized the need for black people to rely primarily on themselves in vital areas of life—economic, political, religious, and intellectual—in order to effect their liberation.”

Authors Bracey, Meier, and Rudwick argue in [their] book “Black Nationalism in America” that, "the concept of racial solidarity is essential to all forms of Black Nationalism." The authors added that, "no ideological or programmatic implications beyond the desire that black people organize themselves on the basis of their common color and oppressed condition to move in some way to alleviate their situation." However, familiarity demands we must once again ponder what intent, if any, lies in this present day self-segregation of Black America.

Despite the fact that nationalism as a doctrine, manifested in the North, nationalism originated in the South. It was there in the South during the 19th century that Africans banded together in an effort to distance themselves from forced assimilation refusing for many years to refer to themselves as Americans. Subsequently, the south represents in 21st Century America the obvious choice for research pertaining to segregation and [its] effects on blacks.

In 2012, researchers from Dartmouth, University of Georgia, and the University of Washington released a comparative study of trends in racial diversity. According to data obtained from the U.S. Census in 1990, 2000, and 2010, the study found that although racial diversity in the nation’s largest cities has been on the rise over the last twenty-years, African-Americans remain concentrated in segregated neighborhoods; that highly diverse neighborhoods are actually rare; and newly arrived immigrants continue to settle in concentrated racial residential patterns.

The research published in the Professional Geographer, presented substantial evidence of changes in neighborhood racial configuration in major cities. In addition, the research found that while there are no longer all black or all white neighborhoods in major U.S. cities, segregation still exists. According to Dartmouth geography professor Richard Wright, "It's clear from our research that we still have problems…with segregation.” Atlanta, Ga. for example according to Wright is a city that has changed dramatically over the last twenty-years, yet remains segregated.

“The trend we've seen is for predominantly white tracts to become more racially diverse and this is because of immigration….African-Americans have a longer history of settlement in the United States. So old histories are getting rewritten in these metropolitan areas, but African-Americans remain segregated," he said. Furthermore, according to a 2003 report by Harvard's Civil Rights Project at the beginning of the 21st century, education for Blacks is more segregated than it was in 1968.

Moreover, black students are the most likely racial group to attend what researchers call "apartheid schools," — schools that are virtually all non-white and where poverty, limited resources, social strife and health problems abound. One-sixth of America's black students attend these schools. The report also suggests a strong link between racially segregated schools and segregation by class noting that in heavily segregated schools the economically disadvantaged account for nearly half of all students.

Yet, as previously mentioned, proponents of Black Nationalism might welcome this segregated dynamic though surely not the results. In addition to Black Nationalism, the concept of Afrocentricity posits that African paradigms, symbols, myths, and values should constitute the starting point for all things black in America. For instance, adopting of African names, fashions and dress (kente cloths, kufi hats, African beads), hair styles (braids, dreadlocks, Afros), food, music, and religiosity. Despite its popularity however, Afrocentricity was not without [its] critics.

Noted African-American professor Henry Louis Gates and white liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger being among the most vocal. Both Gates and Schlesinger argued that despite its intent and contrary to what proponents of Afrocentricity believed, Afrocentricity might lead to the establishment of distinctive ethnic communities. Schlesinger even went so far as to label the pedagogy of Afrocentricity as racist, writing, "If a kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan wanted to use the schools to disable and handicap black Americans, he could hardly come up with anything more effective than the Afrocentric curriculum."

Having made the aforementioned points it is important to note that the underlying question of how these points detrimentally and broadly affects black America and America by default looms ever so large.  Although the answers appear difficult considering the data relative to schools and education there remains the subcutaneous symptoms festering beneath the visual wounds. Moreover, the side effects of the recommended solutions have yet to be addressed, and might never be.

 If the plight of America were to be determined according to African-American contributions the results gleaned from empirical evidence regarding incomes, wealth, education and political influence might appear to render America’s future bleak. In addition, were the determination real and not imagined other ethnic groups might well champion [their] respective ‘we told you so’ attitudes. Meaning that African-American contributions or the lack thereof might lend credibility to the facially neutral segregation of whites and other ethnic groups.

However, it is not the facially neutral segregation, which causes concern. It is the detrimental effect of self-segregation of Black America. Yet, for us to answer that question we are required to consider the visual wounds in addition to those not seen. In all probability, Black America has no idea of [its] self-segregation. It is likely that Black America sees only a neighborhood, sees only unemployment, sees only crime, and despair.  

What Black America and the rest of America fails to see is how self-segregation effects the health of blacks in the form of hypertension, mental disease, low birth weights among infants, and practically no political representation, - sans Ferguson, Mo. What Black America and the rest of America also fail to see is how self-segregation eclipses the ideological norms of race and neighborhoods. Self-segregation also translates into shunning one’s own people.

For example, in his 2010 book, "Buying Black - the Ebony Experiment," author James Clingman Jr. wrote, “There is $850 billion moving through Black consumers' hands each year, with 90 percent of that amount going to businesses owned and controlled by non-black businesses.” Back in the day blacks created benevolent societies to assist one another in times of hardship. If a member became sick or fell on financially hard times, the society would pitch in with food or visit and clean the affected member’s home.

When blacks needed one another, blacks loved one another and vice-versa. Moreover, it appeared that blacks enjoyed segregation. What frustrates the situation is that it is virtually impossible to remain clinical regarding this topic. Thinking outside the box takes us only so far before returning us back to the known and the visual wounds. Too often making factual observations is confused with passing judgment or assigning blame.

On the surface, it appears Black America is unconsciously attempting to return that old worn out suit of integration. Apart from engaging in the things Black Americans believe qualifies [them] as black, most blacks think of themselves as normal. Yet, it just might be the normal of Black America that results in blacks’ constructional eviction and self-segregation, intentional or not. Finally, self-segregation although strengthening the esteem and imagined superiority of others, undermines the foundation of the American economy and [its] ability to remain globally competitive. 


Written by Jay Arrington, Maryland Daily Examiner

For additional articles and information regarding the Maryland Daily Examiner, visit their website  or contact Reggie Kearney, Editor-in-Chief by sending an Email. 


CAUSE TO SUPPORT:

"Don't Punish a Good Cop for Standing Up to Police Brutality
https://www.change.org/p/thomas-p-dinapoli-don-t-punish-a-good-cop-for-standing-up-to-police-brutality
For more information regarding this cause and petition, contact Carol J. Horne at: carioljhorne@aol.com


 
SOURCES:

*History – UCR - http://history.ucr.edu/People/Faculty/Stuckey/

*Smith, Robert C. "Afrocentricity." Encyclopedia of African-American Politics. New York:  
   Facts On File, Inc., 2003. African-American History Online. Facts On File,  \ 
  Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE01&iPin=EAAP0011&SingleRecord=True 

*Dartmouth University - now.dartmouth.edu/.../racial-diversity-increases-but-s...

*Tolerance.Org - www.tolerance.org/supplement/segregation-today

 

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 “It Was Supposed to be a Joke”: The Minimization of Crime According to Ethnicity is a Matter of Accountability versus Entitlement

1/10/2015

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Originally Published for the Maryland Daily Examiner November 2013 –
Updated January 10, 2015

The November 6, 2013 headline in the local paper read, “Mall shooter called friendly but troubled.” The story was about the man authorities say fired six rounds in Westgate Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, New Jersey and later took his own life. But this is not about him, this is regarding the inevitability that the media will automatically try to downplay criminal behavior by offering an excuse for that behavior, at least where it concerns whites. Call it what you will but it’s time somebody said it, and it’s not something that just started either - it’s been happening since this country’s founding.

History refers to Indians defending their lands and their families as savages therefore justifying their (Indians) slaughter (accountability) by whites. On the other hand, however, the white people stealing those lands and killing those families, history refers to them (whites) as settlers (entitlement).

A few seasons ago on the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire,” a couple of white male students at Temple University decided to get even with a rival student. The two students sabotaged the drink of their rival with a heavy dose of Milk of Magnesia and the student died. Upon being questioned by an uncle, one of the students said in a scoffing manner, “It was suppose to be a joke” as if to imply that the perpetrator somehow was the victim because the boy that died took the joke too far. Although fictional, the story is a classic example of art imitating life because that’s just the way things are done in these United States.

Ask yourself, when was the last time you heard some so-called expert talking about how troubled a black or Latino youth was before committing a heinous crime – answer…probably never.  No, the only thing you might hear, if anything, is a police rep surrounded by cameras spewing hate-filled rhetoric and calling the youth animals. Back in 1996 after the boys (white) who committed the rash of arsons in the south that turned several black churches to ash, MSNBC’s Dan Abrams had a white guest on his show, who as expected, said that what the boys had done was, “A prank that got out of hand.”  A prank ...Are you kidding me?

A few years later in New Jersey, police discovered pipe bombs behind several suburban 7-Eleven stores. Afterwards during interviews with local TV stations white teens defended the actions saying it was, “just a bunch of kids trying to have some fun”.  Really?

Furthermore, let’s not even talk about if it’s a white woman. I remember the day after Phil Hartman of SNL fame was killed by his wife as he slept, Hartman’s neighbor, a white female said on the local news that Hartman, must have done something to his wife otherwise she would not have killed him. Reality-check… she killed him while in a cocaine-induced rage, which as it turned out was one of many.

Up next, Debra Lafave the white teacher in Florida accused of having sex with her 14- year old male student. In court, her lawyer told the judge, “She’s young, blond, and too pretty for prison.” It worked.  Lafave received probation, we should all be so lucky. Marissa Alexander was young, and pretty too but she received twenty-years in prison for firing a warning shot into the air to prevent a possible assault on her person by her ex-husband. Oh, yeah Marissa is not white.

The evidence supports all that I am saying. Think about all of the school shootings and the first thing that comes up are mental-health issues and people searching for reasons. Surely there must be an excuse, because according to white experts, “we are not like them” (people of color).” Even when young men of color are the victims, the media, along with the police, portray the young men as criminals implying that these young men are responsible for [their] own deaths sans Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sean Bell and perhaps the most egregious, Eric Garner. Let’s face it; I am not saying that anyone be excused. There is no excuse. Some people are just pure evil and excuses only serve to enable evil. 

What it comes down to is accountability versus entitlement, and it not only applies to crime. This ethnic favoritism applies in other areas too. For example, President George W. Bush’s hundreds of days of vacation time. Bush’s vacation time was referred to as deserved rest. Compare that reasoning to President Obama’s relatively low number of vacation days, which gave rise to people casting false light aspersions on Obama’s character and entitlement, versus accountability once again appears to be a matter of race.

I often wonder how this accountability versus entitlement ideology will play itself out when the role is called up yonder…I don’t think it will pass the laugh test.

Written by Jay Arrington
The Maryland Daily Examiner - 

For more information on this article and the Maryland Daily Examiner, contact Reggie Kearney, Editor-in-Chief.

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Heart to Heart: How a Visit became a Vision

9/23/2014

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"An exclusive and in-depth interview with Sayydah Garrett regarding Female Mutilation"
 
If I were to ask you to make a connection between the gentleness of an elephant and the ghastliness of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), you would probably be hard-pressed to make one. Strangely enough however, there is one and it began just over a year ago in the living room of Sayydah Garrett in the little hamlet of Glen Ridge, New Jersey while watching a documentary about elephants with her husband and daughter. When Sayydah, who sponsors Kenia, an orphaned elephant at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a haven for orphaned elephants in Nairobi, Kenya, mentioned to her husband her desire to visit elephants in their natural habitat in Kenya, his somewhat jokingly tepid response only served to strengthen her resolve to go, and go she did in August 2012. What transpired as a result of that resolve was a visit that is now a vision.

First a little background, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust finds and cares for elephants orphaned because their mothers have been slaughtered for their ivory (tusks) and so then it is no surprise that Sayydah who has enjoyed a love of elephants since childhood would be a passenger aboard this rescue ship. Traveling alone, Sayydah spent four days in the Samburu region of Kenya and on her second day visited the Masai village of Namayiana where because she was the only visitor that day had the run of the village and its beautiful Pastoralist peoples. Pastoralists are semi-nomadic people, meaning they herd goats, cattle (mostly) and sometimes camel and sustain themselves with only three things from the cow –the meat, the milk and the blood.

After spending what she describes as one of the most incredible days of her life singing, dancing, and taking pictures which was evident in the way she reminisced, she returned to the Samburu lodge where upon showing the restaurant captain, Samuel Siriria Leadismo, the pictures she had taken, discovered the village and its people were his home and his relatives. On the heels of their newfound connection, Mr. Leadismo went on to share a little of his background and his appreciation for how his life had turned out. In addition, and on a more serious note, Mr. Leadismo suddenly revealed to Sayydah his determination to eradicate FGM and forced marriages of girls before it was his youngest sister’s turn to be cut.

Upon hearing that startling revelation, Sayydah, asked Mr. Leadismo for more information about the consequences of FGM, which include

  • Circumcised as early as five years-old
  • Infertility
  • Child birth complications
  • New born deaths
  • Higher risks of contracting HIV-Aids

Mr.
 Leadismo told Sayydah that he believed girls should be attending school and not married off to men old enough to be their grandfathers. Feeling the passion on display from Mr. Leadismo, Sayydah told him that she had non-profit and grant writing experience to which he said, “great, you will be our president” and thus was born “The Pastoralist Child Foundation”, whose primary goal is the eradication of FGM within the next three years. In addition, the foundation focuses on replacing the cultural mindset of rites of passage through early and continuing education, community cohesion and awareness.

For more information about FGM and the wonderful work of The Pastoralist Child Foundation and how you can help visit http://pastoralist-child-foundation.org/

Coming soon: Part Two: The Girls and the Numbers
 
Written By Jay Arrington 
Staff Writer for the Maryland Daily Examiner

*For additional information regarding Maryland Daily Examiner, contact Reginald Kearney (Publisher/Editor in Chief): 
Phone: (301)661-3989 or Email to: reginald.kearney@marylanddailyexaminer.com


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Truth: The Missing Foundation of Dialogue 

8/25/2014

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                    “Things which equal the same thing also equal one another.” 
                                                                                               ~ Euclid’s Elements, Common Notions

Truth is, until I watched the movie “Lincoln” I had never before heard of the above referenced theory, nor the man to which the theory is attributed. After Lincoln (Daniel Day Lewis) references the theory, he remarks that the theory is a ‘self-evident’ truth. Meaning the common sense evidence of truth proves the theory and not man’s desire or some convoluted equation. Example, a man and a woman who marry are equal to another man and woman who marry because a man is equal to a man (the same thing) and a woman is equal to a woman (the same thing), therefore, the marriages are equal. However, for the sake of Lincoln’s reasoning, a black man is equal to a white man because they are both men (the same thing) and a black woman is equal to a white woman because they are both women (the same thing); it is what it is, a self-evident truth. Conclusion being that equality should be based on what the truth is, the natural, and not on what we desire, the contrived or whatever makes us feel good.

I said all of that to say, we have reached the point in our national dialogue about race equality, gender equality, marriage equality and any other equality you might name, where we should all refrain from attempting to outsmart the truth. Truth has nothing to do with phobias, political correctness, or wanting to be down with your people or as we say in the hood, “not being black enough.” Truth is, truth hurts, and makes no distinctions based on getting along according to preconceived notions about peace. No, truth lifts the weight, truth unburdens, and sets at liberty those captured by the fear of not being elected, not being liked or being branded as a hater. To the contrary, truth is not the child of hate truth is the child of love and as we say, “will set you free.”   

You see, in America when we allow a person to continue doing something society frowns upon we call it enabling but if we allow or encourage someone to continue doing something society accepts, we call it love. For instance, if we give someone money to buy heroin we say we are enabling, but if we encourage homosexuality we call it love because we want them to be happy. Truth is, I neither condemn nor condone, because it is not my place I am only stating the truth. You see folks, I love you and therefore I have no compunction about telling you the truth.

Truth is, I detest racism but as a Christian, I love the racists because as a Christian I understand that God loves the racists just as he loves me. Truth is, I love my (black) people but I also detest the buffoonery that I witness among some of us. Truth is, wearing pants down below your behind is disgusting, but should not play a role in how one is treated on the streets. Truth is, I would not hire anyone dressed that way but it is not because I don’t care, it’s because I want the person to care enough for themselves not to dress in that manner; to exhibit self-respect.

Truth is, that while we (blacks) should expect fair and just treatment the same as any other group or race we also bear the responsibility of self-respectability. Furthermore, that demanding justice for the senseless murders of blacks at the hands of police officers does not exonerate us from demanding that we refrain from killing our own; nor does it alleviate our responsibility for respecting the rights and property of others. Truth is, truth folks and there is no amount of spin, no amount of rationalizing, and no amount of compromising that will change that. There is no such thing as a ‘white lie” and there is no such thing as political correctness; no, both are lies and the truth is what it is, the truth.

Truth is, integration ruined blacks, and all that those in the Civil Rights era clamored for while it has helped some blacks, has destroyed and oppressed far too many blacks. Truth is we (blacks) cannot continue to complain about the score if we refuse to get into the game when given the opportunity. Truth is, we cannot expect to be taken seriously when we continue to jump up and down to be noticed or continue to participate in every fad or trend the wind blows our way (ice bucket challenge) while having no real passion for or even know the origins of the cause that spawned the trend.

Truth is, as my good friend Chara pointed out these days blacks do not know how to protest. Why is that? It is because far too many of us are dispassionate about the plight of other blacks; “when we needed one another we loved one another.” Now it’s, “I got mine get yours.” In addition, we are too far removed from our history. A history of which many of its participants are still among the living, yet we are too busy watching the birdie and looting stores for cigarettes, liquor, sneakers, and flat screen TVs to learn how to correctly protest and then we are we outraged to hear people refer to us as animals. That’s the truth people and you darn well know it is.    

Truth is, that the majority of folks black and white who read this will agree with everything I have written. Unfortunately, there will be some folks black and white who will be up in arms over this and say that I’m homophobic, that I’m an Uncle Tom or whatever. The truth is folks nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just that I realize that until truth becomes part of the dialogue we will never sow the seeds of progress that reap the fruits of a real and lasting peace. It’s time we stop trying to manipulate and outsmart the truth and let the truth be what it is, self-evident.          

“Lying to cover up a lie is like pulling weeds to save a dead flower.”
                                                                   ~~ Poetry Emotion By Jay – Jay Arrington


Jay Arrington is a featured writer and commentator of the Maryland Daily Examiner.  
Publisher & Editor in Chief, Reginald Kearney
For information regarding Maryland Daily Examiner, Click Here 

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“Can You Break a Nigger? Let’s Check the Manual”

7/28/2014

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Tragic comedy, that’s what the title represents. In 1979 when Richard Pryor performed the skit containing those words, the image of two police officers panicking after killing a black man by placing the man in a chokehold brought the house down with laughter. Yes, it was funny but the humor for whites in the audience differed from that of blacks in the audience. Whites in the audience laughed at Pryor’s imagery, his antics and his delivery, while blacks laughed at the image of two bumbling white police officers. No doubt however, no one laughed at the reality, but again not for the same reasons. Whites did not laugh at the reality because for them the scene Pryor spoke of never was a reality. Blacks did not laugh at the reality because for them it was and remains in 2014, reality. A reality, of which we were once again reminded on July 17, 2014, when NYPD police officers murdered Eric Garner. That’s right, murdered. Cut and dry murder with the assistance of negligent EMT workers.

I call it murder because the NYPD patrolman’s guide unlike the fictional police manual in Pryor’s routine which on page 8 allows for the ‘breaking of a nigger’, strictly prohibits officers from placing any suspect in a chokehold. Make no mistake about it this chokehold was not an accident. It was deliberate and done with malice and forethought. Between 2009 and 2013, the Civilian Complaint Review Board that investigates complaints against New York police officers, received 1022 complaints of police placing suspects in choke-holds. However, the agency fully investigated just 462 determining that only halve of those complaints were valid. Which begs the question, if less than fifty percent of complaints were investigated what message does this lack of urgency and concern send to police officers. Alas, I digress, on to the anger and the outrage.

In one of his more poignant moments during a routine Pryor reflects on the LAPD’s use of the chokehold and the weirdness of it all saying, "Police in L.A., man, they got a chokehold they use on @@##. Do they do it here, do they choke you to death? (Voices from the audience, many voices from the audience: `Yeah!') That's some weird @#*. Cause I didn't know it was a death penalty to have a parking ticket".  Scary, and ominously prophetic not so much because it was abnormal, but because it was and continues to be normal to, ‘break a nigger’ in the eyes of police officers. Moreover, as Pryor eluded too, the minor infractions over which a black man could lose his life, a parking ticket and now as in the case of Eric Garner, allegedly selling loose cigarettes. Furthermore, the callous and cavalier attitude taken by some over the death of a black man at the hands of police versus the death of a policeman at the hands of a civilian.

Now don’t for one second think that I am condoning the death of police officers. I abhor violence and cherish one life as much as the next. However, what I do not appreciate are snake oil salesmen, like Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, consistently defending officers firing fifty or more rounds at unarmed suspects, or as Lynch likes to say, ‘animals’. In a statement Lynch called the decision by the police department to put Daniel Pantaleo, the officer shown in the video placing Garner in a chokehold on desk duty “completely unwarranted” and “absolutely wrong.” Reminds me of the used car salesperson who tells the customer the oil leaking beneath the car is black gold. New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio and Police Commissioner Bratton are throwing around cautionary words such as, purported and alleged, in addition to saying there is a full and ongoing investigation.

Moreover, the Civilian Complaint Board now has a new director, civil rights attorney Richard Emery appointed ironically the very day of Garner’s murder. During the announcement of his hiring Emery said, “Effective policing is by definition constitutional and respectful policing,” As it related to complaints of mistreatment from civilians against police officers Emery stressed the importance of “responding fairly and justly and quickly.”

Fairly, justly and quickly, does that sound reasonable to anyone given the history of police and blacks in this country. Yeah, I know, the answers will vary according to people’s reality. You know, white folks saying yes because for them fairly, justly and quickly is their reality and black folks will say no because fairly, justly and quickly is not part of their reality unless it’s done on behalf of white folks. I mean how much can the words ‘purported’ and ‘alleged’ really mean when the offense is captured on video, what is there to investigate. To hear liberals tell it we’re long past Rodney King as evidenced by Obama’s election and to hear conservatives tell it, at least the US Supreme Court, racism no longer exists as evidenced by Obama’s election. However, the only evidence that matters is what the video shows and it appears that might not even be enough.

Rodney King, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Marlene Pinnock, Oscar Grant and now Eric Garner, and these are but a few on long exhaustive list of blacks victimized by overzealous and pampered police officers. “Enough is enough and too much will make a dog sick.”

Richard Pryor, as funny as his comedy was, it was also tragic and true. “Can you break a nigger?” “Let’s check the manual.” “Yup, page 8.”

Prayers for comfort for the Garner Family

Written by Jay Arrington
                 Maryland Daily Examiner

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“My Country Used To Be”: When Change is Not Progress

6/29/2014

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“To grow up once you’re all grown up is the hardest thing to do. It’s harder to accept the things you could when you were two.” From, “Growing Up Again” © 2002 Poetry Emotion By Jay, LLC 

That above referenced line represents a period in my life when I was homeless and destitute. Apart from the gift of writing, which God has so blessed me, I had no other way of sustaining myself - which I did by selling my poetry on the streets. The experience of this moment often left me reminiscing about the past when I was happily married and enjoying watching my children grow. Moreover and perhaps to a larger extent, I often reminisced about my childhood circa 1963-69 and growing up in the sleepy town of Franklinton, NC -  population approximately 1500-1800 people.  

Back then schools, despite the 1954 Brown v Board decision, along with water fountains, diners, churches, funeral homes, the parks and the pools remained segregated. Speaking of ‘the pool’, there was only the one or so blacks either suffered the heat or did whatever. Fortunately for us, as time passed, my friend Reggie’s, (Publisher, Maryland Daily Examiner), father would take my siblings and me along with his family to the pool in Wake Forest, thanks Rev. Kearney. Aside from that I, and my three brothers’ and two sisters’ lives consisted mostly of school, church, and in a manner of speaking, working the land. Meaning that we helped raise the chickens, shuck the corn, snap the beans, preserve the fruits, slaughter hogs, and gather firewood for heat and for cooking. We also primed tobacco and picked cotton although to this day my brother Solomon swears I never did (pick cotton). However, my recollections of those sweltering hot days differ immensely.

Yeah, when I look back on those days I realize that for all the changes occupying the space between 1963 and 2014, I question how much of that change was or is actual progress. You see, back in 1963 blacks knew who the enemy was. There was no guesswork involved. No one needed to furrow his or her brow in an attempt to figure out who was who. We (blacks) knew who hated us. We knew what streets and neighborhoods to avoid. We knew automatically to go to the rear of the movie theater or to go to the side window of Robin’s grill - God help us if we attempted to go inside. Furthermore, it would not have been surprising to hear politicians such as Senator Jesse Helms R-NC or Alabama’s republican governor George Wallace railing against desegregation or to even refer to blacks as niggers. Not that they ever did so publicly, but had they, it would not have come as a surprise.

Blacks in those days knew not to trust the police although in all fairness that has not changed. Hell, if anything has changed it’s that we understand now that law enforcement’s attitude toward blacks was not limited to just the Jim Crow south. Back then existed as I am sure exist now, one or two genuinely sincere police officers, you know the ones who really believe in protecting and serving the whole community and not just their own. For us it was Police Chief Leo Edwards. Chief Edwards enjoyed a somewhat informal relationship, as informal relationships went in those days with the woman who raised us, Martha Ella Perry or as he would say ‘Martha’. To us and all the other neighborhood children she was simply “Ms. Marthella.” Everyone loved her, and I have no doubt that her sterling reputation and her Godly character fed us many a night. But alas change came along in the guise of progress and well, things changed. But did they or have they changed?  
Despite their long-winded resistance, white folks in Franklinton finally came to grips with reality and integrated schools in 1970. Gone were the days for blacks in the town of being taught by teachers who truly had their best interest at heart whom we also called neighbors. Gone also was the sense of self that for some blacks meant much more than drinking from the same water fountain or attending the same schools as whites. Perhaps for some, change represented progress, but for others, change meant just that - CHANGE.

Can we talk?  You see, for some breaking down barriers to socialize with the enemy made no sense. There were those who recognized that separate and unequal mattered only if you wanted to be like somebody else.  

Many adults in the black community believed the negative portion of the picture should have been the focus of the country’s attention. Yet instead, passion and not reason persuaded and prevailed. If we were to compare achievements whether educational or professionally (sports notwithstanding) among blacks in the sixties versus present day America we would find that many of the problems cited in the 1965 report by then assistant secretary in the Department of Labor the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan remain and in many cases have worsened. His report, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” identified the breakdown of the nuclear family as the primary reason for the dysfunction within the black community. Citing high unemployment, poverty, crime, out-of-wedlock births in addition to a myriad of social calamities, which he called a “tangle of pathologies,” Moynihan argued that without government intervention black families would forever inhabit a cycle of poor education, limited job prospects and dysfunctional long-term poverty.

In June 2013, the Urban Institute released a report, which, re-visited the ‘Moynihan Report’ and pointed out what may have been some of the negative behind the passion. For example, the Moynihan Report posited that the rise of female-headed black households decreased the authority of the black man in the eyes of their families, rendering them helpless and unable to fulfill their roles as responsible fathers and providers, in part because of limited job opportunities. Anyone familiar with tradition within the black family would be hard pressed to argue against the importance of the black man within the family unit particularly concerning discipline in matters of behavior, (socially and morally) as well as educational aspirations.

According to Gregory Acs, Director of the Urban Institute’s Income and Benefits Policy and one of the authors of the Urban Institute report, “African-Americans have made substantial progress in high school graduation rates, college enrollment, income and home ownership rates since the 1960s, however, vast disparities still remain in comparison to whites on a multitude of social measures.”

Facts established by the Urban Institute Report:
  • Early 1960s, approximately 20 percent of black children were born out of wedlock
  •  In 2009, that number increased to 75 percent of black births
  • Marriage rates suffered the same declining path. In 1960, more than half of all black women were married
  • In 2010, those numbers decreased to 25 percent

Other negatives of the 1960s left unresolved by integration include:
  • As of 2014, nearly half of all poor black children reside in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty
  • 76.6 percent of black children attended majority black schools in the 60s. 
  • As of 2010, 74.1 percent of black children attended mostly nonwhite schools
  • Black unemployment during the 60s was about 2 to 2.5 times that of whites
  • As of 2012, the black unemployment rate was 14.0 percent, 2.1 times the white unemployment rate (6.6 percent) and higher than the average national unemployment rate of 13.1 percent during the Great Depression, from 1929 to 1939

So then, given these facts we must ask ourselves what really has changed. Sure, we have a black president but we also have politicians willing to say things publicly that even the most fervent racist politician in 60s would not say in public. Blacks are having a harder time deciphering the enemy in present-day America partly because we have become our own worst enemy, the result of over-assimilation. The black family has changed. So much so that following in your father’s footsteps means going to jail. Educational achievements relating to magnitude of degree or number of degrees obtained individually may have increased but collectively as a people, those numbers are shameful.

When I was six, I accepted things as they were. I didn’t care what water fountain I drank from so long as the water quenched my thirst. I didn’t care from what window my ice cream cone was served so long as it was ice cream. I didn’t care that I went to an all black school so long as I learned something. I didn’t care if my mother felt liberated like white women or whether my father felt equal to a white man so long as they were at home and there for me. PROGRESS indicates moving forward in a positive manner and that situations have CHANGED. I dare say the evidence points to anything positive as it relates to what blacks clamored for in the 60s. Congratulations folks you got what you wanted. Are you happy now?     

~~ Written by Jay Arrington
     Maryland Daily Examiner


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BlackMaled: The Crime of Being a Black Man in America

5/20/2014

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The other morning I was watching on TCM the 1940 film titled, “I Take This Woman,” with Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr. The reason I mention the story has only to do with a certain exchange of dialogue. A white woman asked the butler, played by the great, Willie Best, whose name in the film is of all things ‘Sambo’ if he ever sees spots before his eyes. Well, wouldn’t you know it, Sambo answers by pumping his fist and motioning as though he is tossing dice (spots) signifying that questionable behavior was the only way he could relate to what the woman spoke of. 

At the risk of beating a dead horse, some of you might recall the article I wrote in which I mention a scene from the movie, “Lincoln” where a woman purports that a black man would steal she and her husband’s chickens and his job once given his (freed slave) his freedom. Somehow being a freed black man translated into criminality on our part. However, what better way to justify keeping us in chains in 1865 or for that matter keeping us in chains, invisible or not, in 2014 than to portray us as something black men at our core are not, criminals. Yeah, I know, someone out there is all up in arms about me saying, “The man is keeping us down,” but just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean no one’s following me. Moreover, if what is happening throughout the ‘Justice System’, republican state houses and in Washington isn’t proof enough that black men continue to face the ire of mainstream America, well.   

Apart from resisting and wanting to whup his capturers behind, what crime do you imagine the first African male kidnapped for the purposes of slavery committed to give white folks that idea? Heck, ever since black men arrived in America we have been cast as murderers, thieves and potential rapists of white women. Notice I said ‘white women’ and not ‘women’ as in Black & Native American because the raping of Black & Native American women in those days didn’t count much like in present-day America. However, history does nothing to support the claims that black men were rapists. On the contrary, it was the white man who was doing all of the raping, e.g. Native American women, slave women, and little slave boys. That’s right, don’t for one minute think that white men raping little boys was limited to Priests in the 20th century.   

By the way, on the subject of stealing and murdering, what do you call casting a net over someone’s head and spiriting them away to another country against their will or displacing a people to steal their land? What do you call beating someone to death and having horses rip their bodies apart or the slaughtering of entire villages? Can you say “Trail of Tears?”     

The criminalization of the black male can be summed up in this broad-brush description, “If he’s standing around he’s lurking. If he’s sitting down he’s lazy. If he’s running he’s escaping or leaving the scene of his crime.” Makes you wonder what they allege we are doing in our sleep, dreaming of our next heist? The world views black males as criminals just because we are black. Classic example, the other day I was walking through a mall with a female companion and we passed a kiosk. The woman proprietor of the kiosk was offering eyebrow trimming or something. As my friend and I passed, the woman snatched her purse from atop the counter.    The purse was within arm’s length of my reach and I suppose the woman feared that because I am a black male I wanted her purse. Mind you now this was not a white woman, this was a woman of Indian or Pakistani descent perhaps. I wanted to tell the woman I was about to put something in there. My point is America has every race in the world thinking black males are criminals. But again, what better way to keep us from advancing at least en masse, than to have other races of the world and especially those who migrate to America view us as beneath them, which by the way is one of the main behaviors immigrants attribute to genuine assimilation, hate blacks.   

I’m reminded of that Richard Pryor skit about recent immigrants to America attending citizenship classes. Pryor spoke of how the instructor instructs the students in the art of saying ‘nigga’. The students rapidly repeat in unison, “nigga, nigga, nigga.” After-which, a student asked the instructor how they (students) will know when they have the correct phraseology. The instructor replies, “When you get your @@## kicked you’ll know you got it right.”

The most unfortunate aspect of this phenomenon is the rigged system that despite vigorous denials by those on the right, exist to make the fantasy that black males are criminals a reality. Lackluster education initiatives, school-to-prison pipelines, profiling, unfair sentencing laws, social service rules that encourage women to lie (in some cases) and discourage father participation by punishing the mother/child, and child support laws that encourage women to lie (in some cases) and punish father non-participation. For black males, this scene eerily resembles when Dolphins encircle schools of Tuna, leaving them no path of escape. Mistakenly believing that following the rules of survival and that going where authority leads means safety. The haunting reality however, is authority leads you out of the mouth of one enemy into the mouth of another (nets and other predators). For the Tuna, you either die and/or end up in a can. Either way you get swallowed up. For the black male, you either die and end up in a box or live and end up in the can. Either way you get swallowed up.        


~~~ Jay Arrington, The Maryland Daily Examiner


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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 - Fifty Years Later: Nothing Civil About it

4/15/2014

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“While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” 2 Peter 2:19 


When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed the United States Congress, no doubt many who voted in favor of the bill never envisioned the consequences of its passage. Never in their wildest dreams could they have imagined the advancements the bill would afford women, immigrants (illegal or otherwise), gays, and most certainly blacks. Surely, very few if any foresaw that fifty years later America would have its first black President and first black US Attorney General. Hence, the significance of the above referenced scripture. Because if we examine the recent assaults on several of the protections afforded by the legislation, we see a section of the country gradually brought into bondage by that which it is overcome, power. 

You see, the very thing The Civil Rights Act of 1964 promised those of muted voice, power, is now the very thing many are in fear of losing and are therefore making every attempt to render moot the most crucial protections of the legislation. History if nothing else shows that man is more willing to share power when it poses no serious threat to his own. However, when the sharing of power becomes a threat man is not always as eager to share or relinquish his power. Think about it, the Civil War epitomized both sides of the power issue. For confederates, emancipation of slaves meant they (confederates) would no longer enjoy the power and life of leisure that slavery afforded and therefore were willing to defend to the death the right to hold on to that power. For those in the north however, whose power had no correlation to slavery and therefore felt no threat, defending its (slavery) abolition was a moral issue. 

In order to achieve passage of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Johnson not unlike President Lincoln with the 13th Amendment relied heavily on the votes of the rival party for passage of the bill. Although there exist no empirical evidence to support this theory, there were no doubt some of the opposing party who voted in favor of the bill because of some quid pro quo with President Johnson more so than out of any fervent belief in the bill itself. The point being again that no threat to power arose to impede the sharing of power. Fast-forward to present day America and we find those in power operating from the Monday morning armchair of the survivalist…brought into bondage by that which he is overcome, power. 

At its core, the Civil Rights Act by law eliminated discrimination based on color, religion, sex, national origin and race. In addition, and most importantly for purposes of this discussion the law did away with discriminatory voter registration requirements. With more than thirty states passing restrictive voter ID laws over the past few years in addition to last year’s SCOTUS 5-4 decision to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one does not have to be a Rhodes Scholar to figure out what is going on. The rules for sharing power have changed particularly since those rules now threaten to render moot the power of those accustomed to welding said power for their own advancement. As a result, as previously mentioned, many statehouses across the country have passed restrictive voter ID laws which target in large part the voting rights of the very people the Civil Rights Act targeted for protection, blacks. 

Not surprisingly, these voter suppression efforts are concentrated in republican lead statehouses and intensified with the election of President Obama. Furthermore, attacks on women’s rights to control their own bodies relative to reproductive issues, stand your ground laws, the failure of Congress to pass sensible gun legislation, denial of livable wages and efforts to deny healthcare to Americans, again are indicative of an emerging pattern. Each of the aforementioned issues effect as a majority low income Americans, mainly blacks. Stand your ground laws result in a disproportionate number of black victims and, exonerated white defendants. Denial of affordable healthcare, access to birth control, abortions, and livable wages disproportionately affect minority/lower income women thereby increasing economic hardships and the odds against realizing the American Dream…another threat to power. 

Finally, the light shines on the portion of the bill that symbolizes its role within society and that is the word ‘Civil’. The word civil indicates that regardless of personal beliefs citizens display a tolerance (civility) toward fairness in society and recognize that all men have equal protection under the law. Unfortunately, civility cannot be legislated. Respect for the humanity of others does not exist as a subsection of a House Resolution or within the bylaws of a charter. The election of President Obama revealed that when threatened with extinction a species will use any arrow in its survivalist quiver to hold on to power and ensure its survival. Comments never uttered to or about a president from the floor of Congress to the floors of town hall meetings, cable news shows, and right wing radio permeate the airwaves as the ‘new normal’ of incivility without so much as a whisper of reprimand from so-called republican leaders. To the contrary, the most incendiary comments spew from elected representatives who tell the President, “You lie,” or insinuate that Attorney General Holder be in jail, others even going so far as to say they can’t stand to be near the President or to even look at him.  

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 fifty years later, and were it not for the bill’s existence one would never know from our behavior that America ever attempted to address societal fairness and equality. Quite frankly, “There is nothing civil about it.” 


~~~ Jay Arrington, Featured Writer
        Maryland Daily Examiner  


 See more at: http://www.marylanddailyexaminer.com/civil-rights-act-1964-fifty-years-later-nothing-civil/#sthash.s28X6t5k.dpuf

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    Jay Arrington

    Jay Arrington is a featured staff writer and reporter for the Maryland Daily Examiner.  

    Jay's political commentary is cutting edge, and stands on truth and justice.  

    An activist and advocate for civil rights and a fair judicial system, Jay reports with the conviction of equality for all. 

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